AMD has brought us Revision
F and talked a bit about
K8L, but what of the processor gap between AM2 and K8L? AMD's
intermediate 65nm SOI stepping stone is Revision G. The company has taken
substantial steps over the last few months to convert Fab 36 to 65nm SOI production, and the
company has also announced that Chartered Semiconductor will act as spillover
production for 65nm CPUs. Soon, AMD will start putting these resources to use with the second generation DDR2 CPUs.

The transition from AMD's Revision D K8 processors to Revision E K8 was
essentially the transition from 130nm die process to 90nm SOI with the addition
of SSE3. The progression Revision E to F was then only the
addition of DDR2 memory support to the K8 memory controller, as well as the
integration of Pacifica virtual technology. Processor revisions,
for AMD, come in very small, focused increments -- and the next one for the
company is the shift from 90nm SOI to 65nm SOI. Like the progression from
Revision D to Revision E, Revision F to Revision G will not require any socket
changes.

AMD's first desktop Revision G core, Brisbane, showed
up on AMD's roadmaps just a few weeks ago. Brisbane, like
Windsor, does not have two separate core distinctions for half-cache processors
like with Toledo/Manchester. This processor family will come in two
varieties; one with 2x1MB L2 cache and one with 2x512KB L2 cache.

AMD 65nm Desktop Processor Roadmap 2006

Processor

Socket

Frequency

L2 Cache

Launch Date

Athlon 64 4800+

AM2

2.4GHz

2x1MB

12/06

Athlon 64 4600+

AM2

2.4GHz

2x512KB

12/06

Athlon 64 4400+

AM2

2.2GHz

2x1MB

12/06

Athlon 64 4200+

AM2

2.2GHz

2x512KB

12/06

Brisbane is a massively ambitious
core. The Revision E Socket 939 platform consisted of San Diego,
two versions of Toledo, Venus, Denmark and Venice.
Yesterday AMD announced the Windsor dual-core and Orleans single-core
desktop processors with the Santa Ana dual-core processor on the
way. When Brisbane is announced later this year, all of these
processor families will effectively take the backseat to Brisbane cores.

AMD has not announced other Revision G processors specifics yet, although 65nm
Sempron processors, dubbed Sparta, will replace 90nm SOI Manila processors
that were just announced yesterday. Do not expect a simultaneous launch
of Sparta and Brisbane, as the Brisbane components that
are expected to ship this December are low volume productions.

Revision G is not limited to just the desktop either. Tylerand Sherman are AMD's
upcoming Revision G 65nm SOI successors to the recently announced Taylor and KeeneSocket S1 DDR2 Turions and Semprons.
AMD's roadmaps have revealed that there will not be a 65nm successor to
Trinidad nor Richmond, as the Energy Efficient Sparta and Brisbane processors
will more or less fill the gap between Turion and Athlon/Sempron processors for
DTR notebooks. These Revision G processors will not receive a HyperTransport
frequency bump.

AMD has been hesitant to list TDP information for Brisbane, although
AMD's most recent partner roadmap reveals that Tyler and Sherman will have the
same TDP envelopes as Taylor and Keene; 35W and 25W respectively.

Deerhound, the Revision G successor to Santa Rosa and Santa
Ana, is the only server core on the long-term AMD roadmaps. AMD will
reduce all six 90nm Opteron cores into just two with the Santa Rosa and Santa
Ana -- Santa Rosa will be the unified Socket F dual-core Opteron
while Santa Ana will become the Socket AM2 dual-core Opteron
specifically for 1U servers and high end workstations. With Revision G, AMD
goes one step further with four cores on the Deerhound, though the
features on Deerhound are virtually identical to Santa Rosa with
the exception of the die shrink. K8L processors will then replace Deerhound in 2008.

"You can bet that Sony built a long-term business plan about being successful in Japan and that business plan is crumbling." -- Peter Moore, 24 hours before his Microsoft resignation